Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d27/mkdrv20.arc/CKDRV20.DOC

Text File | 1990-11-02 | 15KB | 368 lines

                                  CKDRIVE.COM
                                  Version 2.0

               Memory-Resident Driver for Add-On Computer Clocks




            IMPROVEMENTS IN THIS VERSION:

                 Version 2.0 of CKDRIVE eliminates limitations of
                 version 1.0 that required manual resetting for a
                 new year or a leap year.  The program now (1)
                 advances the year automatically after midnight
                 December 31 and (2) advances the date to February
                 29 instead of March 1 in leap years.  Other
                 changes improve synchronization between the add-on
                 clock and the system clock; they now agree within
                 about .01 sec.



            AUTHOR:        Pete Petrakis
            COMPANY:       Life Sciences Software
                           2020 Lake Heights Drive, R-301
                           Everett, Washington 98208

            DISTRIBUTION:  Distributed as shareware, which means
                           "try before you buy," not "free."
                           Payment of $5 is required if you find
                           after 21 days that CKDRIVE meets your
                           needs.  Please send your payment (check
                           or money order) to the above address,
                           or call us at 206-337-7328 if you want
                           to register with a MasterCard or VISA.


            DESCRIPTION:

                 CKDRIVE is a memory-resident program that allows
                 battery-powered add-on clocks to be set with the
                 TIME and DATE commands in DOS.  It also
                 automatically updates the DOS clock/calendar an
                 instant before the time and date are displayed
                 whenever you use DOS's TIME or DATE command or are
                 running a program that reads the time and date.

                 CKDRIVE eliminates the need to run special
                 clocksetting programs such as SETCLOCK (to set the
                 add-on clock) and GETCLOCK (to refresh the DOS
                 clock/calendar from the add-on clock).  Whenever
                 you want to change the time or date in your add-

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                 on clock, just change the time or date in DOS, and
                 CKDRIVE will automatically pass the change along
                 to the add-on clock.  Whenever you want to know
                 the time or date in DOS, just ask for it in DOS,
                 and CKDRIVE will refresh the DOS clock/calendar
                 from the add-on clock an instant before the time
                 or date is displayed on your screen.

                 It's important to understand what is meant here by
                 an add-on clock. Although the so-called slotless
                 clocks, which plug into a ROM chip socket in your
                 computer, are also add-on clocks, they are not the
                 kind that CKDRIVE can work with.  Nor will it work
                 with the CMOS clock, which is a battery clock but
                 not an add-on, and is an integral part of the
                 original equipment in AT and better computers.

                 The add-on clock that CKDRIVE is designed to work
                 with is the type that comes on a circuit board
                 that plugs into an expansion slot in your
                 computer.  Although some of these clocks, such as
                 the one on the AST and Paradise multifunction
                 cards, come from well known manufacturers, the
                 clock-only type are typically quite inexpensive,
                 with mail order prices ranging from $7.50 to $15,
                 and very often neither the card nor the box it
                 came in even has a manufacturer's name on it.

                 For example, the box mine came in says only, "Add-
                 On Card for '88 or '286 Personal Computer" and
                 "Made in China."  The word "clock" doesn't appear
                 anywhere on the box and there is not a shred of
                 documentation.  The label on the diskette has only
                 the handwritten letters, "CK," which presumably is
                 an abbreviation for "CLOCK."  That's the type of
                 clock CKDRIVE is designed for, and what is meant
                 here by "add-on clock."  Despite its generic
                 nature, this cheap real-time clock is quite
                 accurate (as computer clocks go) and can track
                 time to the millisecond (DOS can only display or
                 set time to 1/100 second).

                 Interestingly, the cheap no-name generic imports
                 and the brand-name clock boards use the same type
                 of clock chip and usually the same set of I/O
                 ports.  The base port is typically 240 hex, 2C0
                 hex, or 340 hex (occasionally 3C0 hex) and most of
                 the boards allow you to select from a pair of
                 these port addresses (usually 240 hex and 340 hex)
                 by moving a jumper.  When CKDRIVE is loaded, it
                 checks to see which port addresses your add-on
                 clock is using and configures itself accordingly

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                 for memory-resident operation.  If it finds no
                 add-on clock at any of the four likely base ports,
                 it reports that and quits.

                 Some of the better known brands of add-on clocks,
                 such as the one on the AST Six-Pack, come with
                 their own memory-resident driver software.  AST's
                 driver is called ASTCLOCK, which goes memory-
                 resident when you run it with /R on the command
                 line.  If your add-on clock came with that kind of
                 software, you won't need CKDRIVE, although you
                 could probably substitute CKDRIVE for the original
                 driver software.  If yours didn't come with that
                 kind of software, then CKDRIVE is for you.


            RUNNING THE PROGRAM:

                 Type CKDRIVE at the DOS prompt, preferably
                 immediately after boot-up.  The first thing
                 CKDRIVE does when it's loaded is reset the DOS
                 clock/calendar from the add-on clock.  Thereafter,
                 your DOS clock/calendar and your add-on clock will
                 behave as a single clock, passing time and date to
                 each other as needed.  It's advisable to put
                 CKDRIVE in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file so it can reset
                 the DOS clock/calendar from the battery clock
                 whenever you boot the system.  Obviously it should
                 go ahead of any program in the AUTOEXEC sequence
                 that needs to check the DOS time and date.

                 When loaded memory-resident, CKDRIVE takes less than
                 7k of RAM.


            AUTOMATIC YEAR ADVANCE AND LEAP YEAR ADJUSTMENT:

                 Version 2.0 of CKDRIVE will automatically advance
                 the year in both the add-on clock and the DOS
                 clock/calendar the first time you request the date
                 in January -- provided you requested the date at
                 least once with CKDRIVE installed during the
                 previous month.  After midnight February 28 in a
                 leap year it will automatically set the date to
                 February 29 in both clocks -- provided you
                 requested the date at least once with CKDRIVE
                 installed between January 1 and February 28.
                 (Requesting the date during those preliminary
                 periods is practically unavoidable; you
                 automatically request the date every time you save
                 a file to disk, for example.)


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            SYNCHRONIZATION ACCURACY:

                 When you set or read the time and date from DOS
                 with CKDRIVE 2.0 loaded, the two clocks should
                 agree within about .01 second, according to tests
                 on my 8086 computer.  However, agreement between
                 the two clocks thereafter will depend on two
                 factors:  (1) the relative drift rates of the two
                 clocks and (2) the frequency of setting or reading
                 the time.  Remember that all computer clocks
                 drift, including DOS clock/calendars, battery-
                 operated add-ons, and CMOS clocks.  So, if the
                 add-on clock drifts a few seconds a day, its
                 deviation from the true time will be passed to the
                 DOS clock/calendar whenever you ask for the time;
                 the two clocks will then agree, but both will
                 deviate from true time to the extent that the add-
                 on clock does.


            KNOWN INCOMPATIBILITIES:

                 If CKDRIVE is loaded, you should NEVER use the
                 original software that came with your add-on clock
                 for reading and setting it.  If you do, the hours,
                 minutes, seconds, fractions of seconds, month, and
                 day of the month will probably be OK, but the year
                 will probably be read or set wrong, from CKDRIVE's
                 perspective.  The reason is that the three ports
                 available for year information in these clocks are
                 for passive storage and are not controlled by the clock
                 chip, allowing each software developer to devise his
                 own method of storing and retrieving that information.
                 Every program, including CKDRIVE, stores and reads
                 information about years differently, so you should
                 always read these clocks with the same software or
                 software brand you used to set them.  Besides, you
                 won't need any of that software if you use














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                 CKDRIVE; its purpose is to make those separate
                 programs unnecessary.

                 Use only one clock driver at a time.  If you
                 already have a driver that does what CKDRIVE does,
                 there is no need to load CKDRIVE too.  There will
                 be trouble if you do; competition between the two
                 drivers can slow things down dramatically.

                 The Microsoft BASIC Professional Development
                 System (version 7.0 of QuickBASIC) is incompatible
                 with CKDRIVE.  This is disappointing but not
                 surprising since Microsoft recommends that no
                 memory-resident programs at all be present when
                 running that version of QuickBASIC.  No system
                 crash results when QuickBASIC 7 is loaded after
                 CKDRIVE and the two clocks will continue to run,
                 but each will be oblivious to the other
                 thereafter.  QuickBASIC 7 messes things up so the
                 two clocks can no longer communicate with each
                 other through CKDRIVE, and you'll have to reboot
                 and reload CKDRIVE to get that interaction again.

                 Finally, conflicts between memory-resident
                 programs are a fact of life, and they may require
                 you to modify the sequence in which such programs
                 are loaded.


            PROGRAM HISTORY:

                 CKDRIVE.COM was inspired by CLKDRV10.SYS, a driver
                 for slot-type add-on clocks that is loaded as a
                 device in the CONFIG.SYS file and was written by
                 my friend Tom Strickland of Alexandria, Virginia.
                 Tom's driver is part of my TIMESET 5.3 package
                 (TSET53.EXE in Library 1 of Compuserve's IBMSYS
                 forum, Library 2 in the MSOPSYS forum, or
                 TIMSET53.ZIP, .ARC, etc. on bulletin boards around
                 the country).

                 Tom programs in assembly and C.  I program in
                 BASIC and wanted to see if I too could write a
                 driver for these clocks using Microsoft's BASIC
                 Professional Development System (BASIC 7.0) and
                 linkable assembly routines from MicroHelp, Inc.
                 and Crescent Software, as well as some special
                 purpose assembly routines that I wrote.  Crescent
                 Software's P.D.Q. replacement library for
                 QuickBASIC is mainly responsible for the program's
                 small size (for a BASIC program) and its being a
                 TSR.

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                 How do the two drivers compare?  Surprisingly
                 well.  With my 8086 computer, the DOS clock and
                 the add-on clock usually agree within 0.01 sec,
                 making version 2.0 of CKDRIVE.COM precise enough
                 to be used with TIMESET.


            DISTRIBUTION AND DISCLAIMER:

                 You can distribute CKDRIVE.COM to anyone you want
                 provided you do not charge money for it (that's my
                 department) and do not separate it from this document.
                 Use of the program is at your own risk.  Pete Petrakis
                 does not claim that the program will work for everybody
                 and he accepts no responsibility or liability for
                 anything that might go wrong.


                             PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER

            Pete Petrakis
            Everett, Washington
            November 2, 1990
            CIS 76555,1175




























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